Category: Results

KochGelegenheiten both provides an opportunity to gain access to existing cooking facilities and allows for new culinary experiences. So far it consists of several mobile cooking sites and a multilingual map, which presents these sites, along with existing communal kitchens and cooking facilities in the Berlin district of Neukölln, as part of a novel integrated network.

The idea is based on the observation that many people in Berlin have no access or limited access to cooking facilities. This is for example the case for refugees living in shelters, where food is often provided either by catering services or in canteens. Such services rarely manage to accommodate all the diverse eating traditions of the multicultural residents. Making and sharing food is an essential part of every culture and plays a significant role in creating a space of comfort and wellbeing.

KochGelegenheiten is an experiment to enable people to cook for themselves and others. It encourages interactive food culture in Berlin’s social life.

This is a first visualization of how the ShitShow might look in a possible location, in this case the foyer of the Studentenwerk Cafeteria in Berlin. The graphic and exhibition design is an entire project in itself, the concept below is a basic first approach for the task.

Elements of the setup would include stands with the various emotion simulators on display. On the plinths there would be little instructive diagrams on how to wear the objects and perhaps quotes from the survey responses that inspired them. The survey could be extended by creating boards with the questions. Visitors can interact and physically add their own responses. Lastly, there would be a place to display the giveaways and the logo.

Newcomer is an app that connects people in a playful way – it works as a city-rally including different types of challenges which motivates people to discover their environment while meeting and having fun with new people.

The Shit Show is a new approach to a mental health awareness campaign for young people. It is designed to make the sensitive, ‘taboo’ issue of mental health more present and approachable to the public. Psychological struggles are still stigmatized, making it hard to reach out for help. We want to offer an alternative way for people to engage with the topic.

The Shit Show itself is similar to an information booth, except it’s not. It’s more of an interactive pop-up exhibition. Just like standard info stalls, it can be set up at events like conferences, university open days or welcome fairs. The difference is that it isn’t intimidating or embarrassing to approach like a stand for mental health issues might be. It’s design is meant to be more light-hearted, humorous, appealing to a younger generation.

The central element of the exhibition are emotion simulators. Passerbys are encouraged to try on the strangely beautiful contraptions and perhaps even to take pictures with them on. The goal of these objects is to give the wearer a sense of how emotional pain can feel physically. This is meant to create empathy towards those suffering from mental health issues. This can enable people to offer better support when someone reaches out to them. Furthermore, it may make people understand that it does not have to feel this way, that bad emotions do exist, but that they do not have to be as debilitating as these objects.

A possible addition could be interactive infographics, perhaps even created by the visitors. For example, the survey that the simulators are based on could be extended. Existing answers would be exhibited and people would be encouraged to add their own: write down how it felt to wear the simulators, or what their own simulator would look like, or put stickers on a shitty mood scale. These boards are intended to make it visible that bad feelings are something we all experience in some way and that it is nothing to be ashamed of.

As an incentive cool little giveaways will be there. These will include shit-shaped chocolates, shit pile stickers, ( maybe piece of shit badges) and empathic postcards. These items could also be distributed as part of the welcome kits that are often given out at the beginning of the new semester or sold as “moody merch” in the university shop. These little gifts are not just meant to draw people to the stall, but also to spread the word.

The last part of the Shit Show is an online community, either a website or a facebook page. On the giveaways, there will be a link to the page. This way, people have easy access to a first stop when they are in need of help without the awkwardness of taking a regular brochure. Online, people they should find a concise collection of info material, contacts to institutions like the studentenwerk guidance center and links to interesting projects, articles or funny relatable pictures.

“Where does disability start? Is it the impairment that disables people? Or is it the attitude of society or the environmental barriers, that actually disable people?”

We had several interviews that led to many insights, such as:

There are more special solutions for people with disabilities and less inclusive ones. Therefore there aren’t many encounters for people with and without disabilities. This results in prejudice and fear of contact.

So for creating more encounters we wanted to make something inclusive, which both people with and without disabilities can use.

Accordingly to this we asked ourselves what the most effective target group would be.

We decided to focus on children, because we want to encourage the interaction in an early age by playing.

We had the idea of an inclusive playground and had several ideas for inclusive playground equipment. We chose to design a swing.

Process

There are many types of disabilities, it is not very possible to include every single condition. We decided to focus on one type of disability and start small. Because of one of our interviewees, we decided to focus on children who doesn’t have much muscle strength. This means a, their body would require some support in order to sit up, and b, they are very sensitive to how hard the material is. These define the objectivities of our materials, which are soft enough to feel comfortable, and has the ability to adapt to the body shape.

First thing that came out to our mind is a bean bag structure. In our first experience we put the bean bag filling into an elastic fabric and came out with this interesting structure.

It is fun to play with, but as you can see this structure probably won’t last one week in a public playground. We later tried out a more tough and water proof fabric—neoprene, it still didn’t really solve the problem since once there is a little hole in the structure, the entire thing become not functional.

After this, we moved on to foam. The foam we purchased give us a lot of freedom to build a more interesting structure.

Yet we were still seeking a more comfortable material, and ended with memory foam.

Memory foam was first developed by NASA to improve the safety of aircraft cushions. When it was first commercialized, memory foam was mainly used in medical and sports area. Today, it is widely seen in pillow and mattress business as people found it is very good to release next pain or back pain.

It was in the middle of our structure brainstorming that we realized some of the sketches look like a cloud, that is why we name the swing CLOUDI.

We also made some 3D prints based on visual aesthetics. On tope of these, we began to study if the forms make sense, and if the bumps actually adapt to the body.

The project is still on going. We are still in the middle of experimenting the under structure of the swing as well as the proaction on the surface: a tough fabric or some type of rubber coating.

Cloudi

CLOUDI is a start to our vision of an inclusive playground and society, as its educational concept is timeless. It appeals to all kinds of people to enrich their lives through diversity.

We want to approach universal design as close as possible. Redesigning an object which is a regular feature of certain public spaces comes with a lot of responsibility as it is very challenging to find a shape and material that suits everybody’s needs. On the basis of our interviews and design research we tried to develop an object which appeals to the basic human needs like comfort and security.

CLOUDI is not barrier-free in a sense that you can roll with a wheelchair on it. But it is inclusive as it is designed in such a way that people with physical impairments can engage in active play.

Thus, universal design is very demanding.

The goal is to install the swing on a public playground and so it left us with more questions: How are people reacting to it? And the material has to be tested: How robust is it in daily use?

We found that human centered design of a play object for public spaces is too ambitious for a semester project, so this project is not over yet. So if you have any thoughts or feedback, feel free to contact us!

The Refugee Camps in Berlin only supply the bare necessities. Besides eight bunkbeds there is often no more furniture. Its very hard for the people to organize themselves and their stuff in the rooms. Besides that people have a lot of time and -as we found out through research- a lot of creative potential and motivation to do something with their hands.

We wanted to make furniture that is easy to assemble and can be combined in different ways. Two different formats of Chipwood Plate can be combined to either a stool, a box or a shelf-element by using only cable binders as a connector.

We tried our prototypes last week at the ICC Berlin. It was very productive and fun. Explaining the principle of the cable ties with the language barrier was a challenge but it turned out that material says more than words 🙂 After the first two tries the participants of the workshop could teach each other how to build the furniture.